Sill Snowing

Hi everyone,



It is still snowing here. It just started again an hour ago after a day reprieve!



It is so cold. The roads are so dangerous as it starts to melt (a little) and then freezes over night as it drops to -5 or worse.



Last night we had our Chinese New Year Party put on by the school. It was pretty cool to go to. When we got there we were given gifts. Kane got some bowls and I got some chopsticks. They had lucky draws and Kane won a rice cooker. Pity we can't read Chinese to put it together ;) I'll have to wait until after the holiday to ask my Chinese tutor. The food was interesting' last night with things like Chicken soup with all the nits including feet, whole fish, squid, crab, prawns, cold dishes, pork with heaps of fat and much more. I tried to taste most things but some were awful and some of the textures very alarming! We mostly enjoyed the good old beef stir-fry!!!!!



On the way home on the bus we saw maybe 5 accidents from the icey dangerous roads in 1/2 an hour. That is when they decided to cancel school for the 3rd day. Now we wait to find out if school is cancelled for the rest of the week.



We are a little concern about getting to the airport on he weekend as it is supposed to start snowing again on Friday. We have booked a driver and have allowed ourselves 9 hours to get to the airport. Fingers crossed for us please.



Cheers everyone,

Kelly

More Snow

We have had more snow over night. 1-2 inches and it is resting on the roads. We are supposed to get another 19cm over he next two days, plus more Tuesday and Thursday night. Welcome to the winter wonderland where it only snows once every few years and never this much! (well that's what they tell us so we'll come to China!)

This picture is of the pool. The small one to the left is frozen over, you can see the difference in colour as the snow is starting to rest on top. The bigger pool is frozen slightly at the far end on a diagonal angle, which is weird because that is the deep end.

This picture is taken at the bottom of the small pool and zoomed in to show the cheap Chinese labour force that is being used to clear the paths.

This is our management office, you can see the roads in the distance with snow on them and the paths made by the Chinese ground staff.

This is taken right below our balcony, there were footsteps in the snow last night! And this also shows the grounds person making a path right at the bottom.

This is the apartment complex next door, taken from our balcony.

So the baby shower I was supposed to attend today has been cancelled as it is too dangerous on the roads with the snow and it is taking too long to get taxi's etc. The snow has started to fall again now (9.36am), so it'll be another DVD day!

Snow on Australia Day

Today was our national holiday. The 26th of January - The day we drink, listen to the hottest 100, drink, play cricket, drink, play Aussie trivia games and drink, put on sunscreen, drink, hunt for a shady spot and drink and drink and drink! This morning this is what we saw at 11.30am:





We had 7.4cm of snow today with more forecast over the weekend. Our Australia day was spent listening to Aussie songs in a packed restaurant that had cracks between the doors. We had sausages that tasted like cabana with onion and sauce, mushrooms with cheese and various Aussie clothing and flags dotted around the place. I won the annual mintie wrapper competition and won an Aussie flag stubby holder. It was bloody freezing. The kids went outside to make snow balls as it snowed consistently all day. Once the beer kicked in, the parent joined in too. When I got home at 7.30pm this is what was on the ground. This is our complex:




Kane has gone off to join up with a school organised pub crawl while I'm at home. Entirely my choice, unlike him I have an all day buffet and champers at the Sheraton tomorrow for a baby shower, Monday night I'm downtown for tea and Tuesday we have our Chinese New Year dinner. So I wanted to be home tonight. So I'm a busy little beaver, and then next Saturday we are off to Vietnam and Cambodia!

Holiday ramblings - well the start of them!

On our flight to Bangkok. Both feeling pretty tired!

22nd December 2007
We left our complex around 7.30am after the driver got lost! We arrived at Shanghai around 10.00am, our flight due to leave at 2.15pm. A long wait around the airport, but we hadn’t paid for our tickets yet. It was a rainy miserable day in China, our flight got delayed by ½ an hour which isn’t so bad, however we had to catch a bus to the plane, and then walk to the plane in the windy rain. Made us appreciate going to Thailand even more! There is a one hour time difference in Thailand so we had to put our clocks back one hour. When we got to our hotel, ‘The Atlanta’ we settled in quickly, got dressed into lighter clothing and went to a big shopping mall called Siam Paragon. It’s very swanky J . You don’t pay cash in the food court, you give a lady some money and she puts credit on a card, then you can go to any food stall in a food court and buy whatever you want to eat using the card. You need to spend all the money in the same day otherwise you lose your money. Then we went and got some mosquito repellent in a ‘real’ supermarket... not a shity one like China has. Later that night we went for a walk to a few bars, but because there was an election the next day it was hard to find alcohol. Finally we found one hidden in a dark street. They put us in a room with a sunken floor, much like a Japanese restaurant and told us not to tell anyone as they gave us some beers. Further around the corner w found another local bar before heading home.

At our hotel in Bangkok. 'The Atlanta Hotel'. It's suck in the 50's but cheap and clean. It was once very famous as the Queen of Thailand used to go there each Wednesday. It was also the first hotel to have pool, which used to be a snake pit before it became a hotel.

23rd December 2007
Today we went shopping at Chatachak Market. It is deemed to be the largest market in the world. –HUGE!- We shopped for hours, bought many things, skirt, sunglasses, cushions, shirts, food, hat, thongs, crocs, board shorts... and more we can’t think of right now. We met a man who tried to get us to go to Pattaya. When we read up about Pattaya, it didn’t really sound too inviting. When we got back to the Hotel we really wanted to organise a trip to Tiger temple and maybe an elephant ride for the next day. After a swim the hotel had organised at trip to Tiger Temple, floating market and Bridge over the river Kwai. Tiger Temple was 2.5 hours away but the whole day was going to cost us 3500Baht, split that between 3 and it really isn’t too bad, so we decided to do it – another early morning planned. That night we went to dinner to a really cool restraint in Suk 11 (street name) we had typical Thai food a curry and Tom Yum soup. After dinner we’d been told to visit Patpong by a few other ex-friends (just kidding). It is where some women can do some interesting things with body parts. An experience... I might tell one day ;)

Some floating market shots.

Sherry and I on an Elephant ride.

The Engagement Pictures

Ok. So I'm not getting anywhere closer to writing about our holiday (Report time does that to you)!!!!!

Kane and I had spent 6 days on KohPhangnan with 3 other people and we were getting a little bored. The weather was quite cool (for Thailand) and the waves were huge! So thinking, it may not get better, we decide to head back to Koh Samui a day earlier. Well thank-god we did, cause our friends missed the plane the next day as the weather didn't get any better.

We got a 4WD lift back to the ferry. We got our ticket which was in Thai and got on the ferry. 1/2 an hour into the trip back we saw Koh Samui (where we wanted to go) slide on by. Kane was getting pretty antsy by then. We had gotten on the wrong ferry, and of course because I'd bought the tickets it was my fault. I saw a man, and then we started talking to him. He said that these ferry was headed to the mainland. So we panicked for a bit, then decided we couldn't really do anything until we got to the mainland. When we got to the mainland, I got off and asked a girl how I could get to KohSamui. She told us at the ferry would go back to KohSamui. Luckily it did. It was only a five hour journey, that should have taken only half an hour!

So finally we get to our hotel, and it is gorgeous. It wasn't near the ocean, but it wasn't very nice weather either. We decided to go out and had dinner downtown, any source and had typical Thai pub and clubs. Most of them had girls sitting at the front. We chose a nice Russian and Turkish restaurant and ordered a beautiful meal. We had a look around and decided to go home as we were really tired.

The next morning we got up and decided to have breakfast at the restaurant in the resort. We started walking down to breakfast, but Kane had forgotten his water so he ran back up to get it. I kept walking down to the restaurant. Breakfast was included in the price, and it was so good, there was so much to eat. After breakfast we walked back up to a villa, and Kane unlock the door. He sort of pushed me through first, the first thing I saw was all but things from the coffee table on our bed. And I thought that was weird, "who had been in our room?" When I looked at the coffee table I saw a jumper with Mrs. McGregor on the back. Kane got down on his knee for 1.2 seconds and asked if I would marry him. I said of course. Now I think I should have taken longer to answer him. He had trouble getting the ring on my finger, so we had to push hard.

We got all excited for about 10 minutes, but couldn't call anyone, so we started to read out books. It was kind of an anti-climax.

So we'll come back in July this year and start looking for a reception venue. Zoe... do you have any ideas? Let me know.

Catch you later,

Kelly

XXX

It is so cold!

Today it has been so cold. It snowed this morning at 8.30 and it has only just started to snow again. This morning they were small flakes, but now they're quite large. I went out to take some photos, but they didn't turn out very well. By the morning there might be quite a bit on the ground, or it may just melt.

Kane and I have been very slack with this blogging lately, so much to say and we don't know where to start. We have been writing a bit of a diary on the computer about our trip to Thailand and when it is finished we will post it. We have both been working really hard to finish reports this weekend and now only have one section to go to each.

Tonight I cooked a delicious roast chicken, but was a bit disappointed to find the best bits removed by the Chinese man that gutted it for us.

We only have another three weeks to go before we go on our next trip, though we're are still trying to work out what to do about our Vietnam visa's.

Best be off, and we'll try to write some more soon.
Love Kelly and Kane
xxx